W\\CKED

Keep the Nightmares Away

[Jul]

I lay next to Sanny, listening to the gentle rhythm of her snore. I usually found it comforting to know I wasn't alone in the darkness, but tonight, nothing could ease my anxiety.

Why did someone inflict my scar on Kay's face? Was it a threat? Sanny swore the killer was the stranger from the beach, the one who spoke to me as if he owned me...

I clung to my only refuge, the pendant attached to my necklace. I couldn't remember a day when my brother Jordan didn't have it tied around his neck on his favorite leather strap. Not a single day-until the day he died.

The smell of that horrible night, cinders thick in the air, and the taste of it like hot tar against my tongue, came rushing back. I closed my eyes and let it come. I wanted to remember Jordan. I needed to see his tender gaze, to hear his voice, so calm and steady even as our childhood crumbled around us.

"Cricket, listen to me."

I'm on the bed in my old room back at the Dakota. Jordan kneels in front of me as he removes the stone from around his neck. "I want you to wear this."

Something terrible will happen if he gives it to me. I shove his hand away. "I'm not supposed to touch it."

"I need you to take care of it for me." He slides it over my head. "But you have to promise never to take it off, no matter what. Promise me, Juliet."

My voice cracks. "But it's yours."

The door to the bedroom explodes behind him, a thousand fragments of wood shattering over our heads. A shadow appears in the doorway. The shadow speaks, his voice slicing right into my heart like an arrow.

No, please, no-not that voice. Oh, god, a voice I buried with the dead.

Jordan looks only at me. "Remember your promise, cricket."

As hands reach out to tear him away, I begin to scream.

I shoved the memory away, gasping for breath as my vision flashed white, then faded away to reveal the dimness of the bedroom around me.

Let it go, a comforting voice whispered in the back of my mind. You're safe now.

I was warm in my bed, with the whole of my father's security force protecting me. I had nothing to fear, not from the past and not from the murderer who so cruelly ended Ken's life. My father would find him and get him thrown in prison. Dad had done it for a other families. He could do it for ours.

You're not alone, the voice reassured me. Go to sleep. The one who loves you most will protect you.